In the packaging field, it is often desirable to apply bands about products, as where one wishes to band a stack or bundle of products into a group for ease of handling, and/or where it is desired to apply a labeled or decorative band about the circumference of one or more products. Unfortunately, the banders commonly available in the packaging field tend to be expensive and have a large number of moving parts, which decreases their reliability and increases their maintenance costs. Further, the processes and materials used by commonly available banders often tend to damage the products being banded, as where the product is so tightly wrapped that it deforms under the pressure of the band, or where the bands dig into the product. Further, the applied bands are often wrinkled, crooked, or otherwise irregular, particularly when applied at high speeds, and therefore make the banded products aesthetically displeasing to consumers.
A first example of a common banding device is the string tier, which wraps a product with twine, rope, or ribbon layers, and then ties the ends of these materials together about the wrapped product. The tendency of these materials to dig into and damage the banded product is well known. Another common banding device is the plastic strapper, which wraps a plastic (usually polyester or polyethylene) strap about a product and then joins its ends with a metal clip or a friction weld. These devices tend to suffer from the same disadvantages as the string tier, and additionally the strapping material is relatively expensive.
Paper banders are also commonly available which wrap a product with a strip of paper or plastic, and then join the ends of the strip with glue or a heat seal. Glue application often tends to soil the product being banded, and where treated papers are used to avoid the use of glue, expense is significant.
Pallet wrappers are also known which wrap products with multiple layers of stretch film. Stretch film—often formed of LLDPE (Linear Low-Density Polyethylene) and similar materials—can exhibit elasticity of as much as about 300 percent before it begins to plastically deform. Stretch film is therefore a useful material in banding and other packaging processes since it can be wound about products in tension, with the film subsequently elastically contracting to tightly surround the product. Further, glue, heat sealing, and the like are typically not needed to join ends of lengths of stretch film, since the ends of the film tend to readily adhere to other areas on the film owing to the material's inherent tackiness and/or static adhesive properties. Pallet wrappers usually include a spool of stretch film mounted on a drum which is orbited around the product to be wrapped. These devices are typically used to prepare palletized products and other large objects for shipping, and they generally do not present aesthetically pleasing bands, with the bands being necked owing to stretching, and/or wrinkled owing to slack, and are otherwise irregular about their circumferences.
The aforementioned solutions tend to be unsatisfactory where a user wishes to apply bands to easily damaged products, or to smaller products, or to a variety of different products having varying outer circumferences, particularly where it is desired to apply aesthetically pleasing bands. Once prior device that attempted to address these problems was developed by the inventor of the present invention, and was sold in 2006. This device operated in generally the same manner as an orbital pallet wrapper, but on a much smaller scale, one suitable for orbitally banding products having diameters of approximately 18 inches or smaller. Similar devices are also described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,850,177, 4,936,073 and 5,070,676 to Laczkowski et al. The product to be banded was situated on a support table, and a user would actuate the device to cause a spool of stretch film to orbit the product along planes adjacent to the support table. The spool was rotationally mounted at the end of an orbital arm so that the film could unwind from the spool about the product as the spool orbited the product. A brake situated between the arm and the spool resisted rotation of the spool on the arm, thereby allowing sufficient tension on the spool during unwinding that the product was tightly wrapped. The device also featured a pair of pincers that grasped an unspooled end of the spool of film next to the product to be wrapped, and held it as the spool orbited the product. After the spool made two or more revolutions about the product and returned to a location adjacent the pincers, the pincers would withdraw from between the product and the film, with the film then elastically snapping tight about the product. The pincers would then grab the film extending between the spool and the applied band and cut it, and at the same time grasp the newly-formed unspooled film end. The inventor's prior device was imperfect insofar as the film tended to irregularly stretch or go slack while wrapping about the product (particularly if the product was resting eccentrically with respect to the axis about which the spool orbited), and additionally the fingers tended to dislodge the band and/or pull out its lowermost film layer when withdrawing from between the band and the product. As a result, while the device worked well for the purpose of merely banding a stack of items together, the applied band was not entirely suitable where a neat and aesthetically pleasant band was needed.